


A Tale Concerning the Emperor's Wedding

by Trismegistus (Lebateleur)



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:10:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8883409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/pseuds/Trismegistus
Summary: On the day of Maia Drazhar's wedding to Csethiro Ceredin, a subject creates a complication.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChibiSquirt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiSquirt/gifts).



Maia fought back a yawn and did his best not to list where he sat. “Serenity, _please_ ,” Nemer begged. He would not protest that he was tired, for they all were, so he settled for nodding to show he had heard and then caught himself. But by then it was too late. With a small moan of despair, Nemer began pulling the tashin sticks and ropes of jewels from his hair.

Dawn was only just breaking, but he had been awake for several hours already. His edocharei had been fussing over him ever since, draping him in robes of silk and gauze and carefully setting each fold and pleat, buffing and lacquering his nails to what would surely be a deadly sheen in the new spring sunlight, and carefully setting his hair with the countless strings of tiny freshwater pearls sent by his many well wishers and the even greater number of subjects who hoped to curry imperial favor. 

Maia knew that each small pearl—perfectly white, perfectly round—represented a wish for a single imperial heir. The gift itself was specified by tradition; the amount to be gifted was not. Judging from the gratified reactions of both Csevet and Avris, he had received far more than was customary. Aloud he instructed his flock of secretaries to convey his thanks to his many benefactors, while privately he thought that even the most wanton emperor possessed of a bevy of concubines could not hope to father so many children, even were he to dedicate the whole of his reign to the exercise. And he was but a single man, who hoped that no more than one empress would ever lie entombed beside him in the Untheileneise'meire. 

_And,_ he thought, ears twitching wryly, _Should thy offspring come into the world as pure and white as these pearls_ \--yet another facet of the gift's symbolism-- _it would be a sign of something most inauspicious indeed._

At last the preparations were finished. Maia levered himself up from his seat and gratefully accepted the cup of steaming strong tea that had materialized at his side, courtesy of Csevet. He drank deeply, ignoring the dismayed objections of his edocharei, for whom one errant brown drop would spell the undoing of all their labors.

The tea was a welcome warmth in his stomach. He had taken no food this morning, nor did he wish to. Tradition dictated that the emperor take the first meal of his wedding day with his bride, to signify the beginning of their union. Maia strongly suspected the symbolism had been appended after the fact to save face for both the emperor and his kitchen. He was not the first ruler of the Ethuveraz to enter into an arranged marriage, nor likely the first to do so with a greater sense of trepidation than appetite.

“Serenity, if you are ready?” said Csevet.

“Yes,” he said simply, careful not to nod lest he undo Nemer's handiwork a second time and wondering how he was meant to make it through the day with what must surely be half his weight in pearls piled atop his head. _At least,_ he thought as he took his first step across the room, _it ensures thy pace and carriage are properly slow and solemn,_ and had to bite back a laugh at how the court would react should their emperor in a fit of nerves rush to the marriage pavilion like a child playing chase-friends.

Emperor, secretary, and nohecharei filed out the door, where they were joined by Telimezh and Kiru. Maia bit back an apology, for their attendance upon him today essentially meant a double shift on duty. “It is our honor to accompany you, Serenity,” said Kiru with a gentle smile, and pleased, he smiled at her in response. 

His marriage, strictly speaking, dated to the signing of the marriage contract the previous winter, but it was the public ceremony to which the citizens of the Elflands looked forward. Attendance at the rite itself was strictly limited to members of the noble houses and the court, but both Maia and his empress would spend the morning traveling the streets of Cetho in state, calling at each of the main temples to receive the blessings of their prelates. A special open carriage had been prepared for the occasion, and from its vantage Maia observed the festival crowds as raptly as they watched him. 

Maia would have found the crowds overwhelming had he not so enjoyed the spectacle. The streets were thronged with citizens eager to catch a glimpse of their emperor, and an equal number eager to supply the first with food and entertainment. As his procession made its way laboriously down the teeming avenue Maia caught sight of acrobats, buskers, and hawkers selling all manner of foods. He even thought he saw a man selling steamed eel, a delicacy he'd thought unknown beyond the hamlets near Edonomee.

When his circuit of the city was complete, Maia returned to the Untheileneise Court, where he spent the afternoon receiving the seemingly endless quantity of nobles, leaders of commerce, and foreign dignitaries who wished to extend their congratulations in person. Their faces soon blurred into one another, and were it not for the coming and going of Csevet and his nohecharei or servants, he would have thought time had ceased to pass at all. It was exhausting yet left him with a strange sense of airiness, for very few of them were so bold as to press him by means direct or subtle for favors on such an auspicious day. 

Maia reached the end of their number just as late afternoon was staining the western sky beyond the windows with delicate oranges and shell pinks. His neck ached with the strain of supporting his elaborately dressed hair, his clothes felt like weights, and he began to wonder if the entire day were not designed so that the emperor was too fatigued to feel anything but relief at the prospect of returning to the Alcethmeret with his new bride. It was certainly with a feeling of relief that he greeted the reappearance of his secretary as the last of the well-wishers approached the throne.

But Csevet moved purposefully past them and said in a low voice, “Serenity, if you would come to the Tortoise Room, a matter has arisen that demands your immediate attention.” With a start, Maia noticed the ashen color to Csevet's face that even his carefully composed expression could not hide.

Maia rose and hastily accepted the congratulations of the remaining dignitaries as he made his way from the room in Csevet's wake. He cast a quizzical glance at Cala and Beshelar, but could tell from their expressions that they knew no more of what was toward than did he. He had the sudden, irrational notion that Csethiro had called off the wedding, that her initial talk of duty had been nothing but a subterfuge, that their budding, cautiously hopeful interactions since Winternight had been naught but a lie. But he knew himself for a fool even as the feeling assailed him. He knew better than to call what had grown thus far between them love, but it was certainly the companionship he had hoped for in his initial correspondence to her. 

So what then was the matter? Maia entered the Tortoise Room to find it already occupied by his Chancellor, Captain Orthema, with Telimezh in a chair beside him, looking ill; the Witness for the Judiciary, and the court Master of Ceremonies, who over the past several months had been a presence almost as constant as Maia's nohecharei as he sought to instruct Maia in all the intricacies of an imperial wedding. A moment later, Csethiro entered as well, accompanied by Lieutenant Echana and the other members of the Untheileneise Guard who were to become her armsmen upon the conclusion of the evening's ceremony. Csevet shut the door with a click and turned to face his emperor. “Blackmail, Serenity,” he said without preamble. 

“What?” 

“Blackmail, Serenity,” he repeated. “We were contacted midmorning today by one Paret Oredalar. He is threatening to, ah, complicate your Serenity's wedding should we not accede to his demands.”

“But,” he said, not comprehending. “What demands? And we do not even know any Paret Oredalar.” 

“Nor should you, Serenity,” said Lord Pashavar grimly. “He is the owner of a penny press in one of Cetho's less reputable wards. He is particularly well known for his satires.”

“Serenity,” Telimezh croaked. “We are sorry.”

“We certainly have no wish to be the target of satires,” said Maia impatiently. “But we hardly imagine this Oredalar has written the first to feature us or even our wedding. And we certainly see no reason why _you_ should apologize to us for it,” he added, looking to Telimezh.

But his concern, if anything, only seemed to make Telimezh more miserable. “We are sorry, Serenity, truly,” he said. “We never thought, when we wrote, that it would ever lead to something like this. We should have known better, and we are truly sor--”

“When you wrote? Wrote what?” Maia broke in, drawing another wince from Telimezh, but if nothing else circumventing another apology.

“Serenity,” said Captain Orthema. “We understand that, following the occasion of your birthday last Winternight, Lieutenant Telimezh wrote to an acquaintance serving as armsman to the House Ceredada, wishing to know more of the history of the sunblade you received from Dach'osmin Ceredin.” 

Maia recalled Telimezh's enthusiasm for the rare gift, the way his eyes had lighted when he recognized its provenance. “But,” he sputtered, “there can be nothing objectionable about that! He did not write to Dach'osmin Ceredin directly, nor was his purpose in contacting his acquaintance in any way connected to her.” Strictly speaking, Maia knew he had no grounds for making either statement, having neither seen Telimezh's letter nor even known of its existence before this moment. But still, he could not believe that there was anything untoward in his nohecharis's actions; the lieutenant's love of weapons and armaments was perhaps unrivaled by anyone outside of the universities.

“Both true statements, as far as such things go,” said Berenar. “But he did contact a member of the Ceredada household, and his letter passed—either by ill luck or quite possibly for a tidy sum—into the hands of someone other than its intended recipient.” 

“And now Paret Oredalar is possessed of a letter written by your Serenity's nohecharis to your Serenity's betrothed, and he proposes to make the whole affair public should we not respond agreeably to his several 'requests,'” finished Lord Pashavar.

“But he _didn't_ write to Csethiro,” Maia said in rising frustration. “The letter itself is enough to prove that. Can we not bring an end to this fiction by demanding that he produce it?”

“In this case, Serenity, there is just enough truth to the fiction to make it real,” said his chancellor dryly. “And like the best fictions, it will be all the more delightful for it—enjoyable precisely because it is not true but will become so once sufficiently repeated.”

“As close as an emperor to his empress and nohecharei,” said Beshelar, quoting the common saying. Maia had never before heard him sound so livid. “Serenity, if you do not address this now, there will always be _questions_.” Maia thought, suddenly and ludicrously, of the pearls, and was on the verge of telling Beshelar that there would hardly be questions unless this Oredalar was also prepared to intimate that Telimezh was secretly of goblin extraction. But then, it would be almost a year—quite possibly more—before the birth of any royal scion could prove the rumors otherwise. 

But how many people would actually ever see his imperial offspring themselves? And more to the point, an ugly rumor once started grew and changed like the face of the moon but rarely if ever went away; the stories told of Maia's supposed madness, of why his father had relegated him to Edonomee, were all the proof he needed to know the truth of _that._

Maia only remembered Csethiro was in the room when she rose suddenly from her chair. Her face had flushed a very hard red and Maia wondered vaguely if now she would break the marriage off. “Serenity, we beg you to excuse us for a moment. We have no wish to remain present while you sort out a political solution to this outrage. Lords, Captain, gentlemen,” she said, nodding to each in turn, and then strode purposefully from the room. Her erstwhile armsmen scrambled to follow in her wake. 

Csevet stood aside to let them pass, then shut the door and turned back to face the room. His mouth had pressed into a thin line and his ears lay flat against his head. “Serenity, we _must_ find a solution to this situation before the ceremony this evening,” said Pashavar. “Your subjects are already highly excited by your wedding; in this state they are as like to turn on you at the drop of a coin as defend you, and any rumor will spread like wildfire.” He spoke passionately, and doubtlessly from experience.

“And yet,” said Csevet slowly. “Any concession we grant to Oredalar will only encourage him to seek another. Nor,” he added with a sudden access of ferocity, “do we wish to see your Serenity bend to such base designs.”

They were still debating the merits of how and how much to offer to Oredalar when one of Echana's men burst unannounced into the chamber, panting and red-flushed. “Come, quickly,” he gasped between breaths. “Have a care for protocol,” said Captain Orthema from one end of the room, just as Beshelar barked, “Private, salute!” The soldier gaped at them, then turned to Maia directly. “Serenity, as soon as he knew—please, come quickly—Lieutenant Echana sent me,” he implored, the words coming out in a jumble. “Dach'osmin Ceredin, she's summoned Oredalar to the Alcethemeret.”

“She can't mean to negotiate with him directly?” said Pashavar in disbelief.

The soldier goggled. “Negotiate? No. She has challenged him to a duel.”

They spilled from the Tortoise Room, Maia heedless of his robes and streaming tangled strings of pearls in his wake. He had never visited Csethiro in her private apartments; indeed, custom forbade it before their marriage, and he could only follow blindly behind Csevet and the Master of Ceremonies, who both seemed to know exactly where they were headed.

They burst into Csethiro's receiving room to find her standing with her back to the windows, ears tilted aggressively forward and a long, thin rapier gripped in her manicured hands. 

A man whom Maia had never seen before stood across from her. Maia did not know what he had expected—someone hunched and ink-stained, with crafty, narrow eyes like a villain from a book of illustrated wonder-tales, perhaps, but this man was not it. He was thin and bright-eyed, and stood very straight. He looked energetic, and supremely unconcerned that the future empress of the Elflands stood before him with a sword in her hand, having challenged him to a duel.

Oredalar cast them one arch, sidelong glance as they rushed into the room before returning his attention to Csethiro. “Finally,” he said. “Perhaps one of you may be able to talk some sense into her. We have not been able to. And we hope,” he added with another quick flick of the eyes toward Maia, “that you will prove more sensible to deal with. You will find us a very reasonable man; we trust you will be also.”

Maia turned to the assembled to find them all looking to him. The Master of Ceremonies looked ill, Berenar incensed, and Maia's nohecharei had closed into a tight circle about him and were watching Oredalar like hawks. “Your Serenity,” he said in a calm voice, “We see your empress is highly excitable; perhaps it would be best for all if we retired to another room to discuss matters.”

Maia clenched his hands and tried to think through the fog of shock and confusion. He knew that tone of voice and expression well—it was Setheris to the core, a man who thought he had the upper hand and could move the pieces about the board as he saw fit. _I am emperor,_ he thought, _and thou art not my cousin. Thou dost not command me, or even make suggestions of me._

“We think,” he said slowly, and in his cold anger it was very easy indeed to keep his voice level and his ears still, “that we would rather have the Guard arrest thee instead.”

Oredalar tipped his head in acknowledgment. “As is your right, Serenity. But that would end poorly for both of us, whereas we seek a solution whereby both might gain.” And Maia saw immediately the trap that had been laid. Oredalar would have been a fool to accept Csethiro's summons without leaving the letter, or perhaps the finished satire itself in the hands of at least one other, and emperors had ever used arrest and banishment to conceal unpleasant truths. To detain Oredalar now would be the surest way to make his vile intimations appear real.

Oredalar was watching him closely. A corner of his mouth quirked when he saw the conclusion Maia had reached. “And so, we negotiate,” he said.

Csethiro's gaze darted from Oredalar to Maia and back again. “Don't,” she said as he took a step toward her. “We have summoned him and challenged him, and he may not back away now with his honor intact.”

“Serenity,” said Beshelar in a choked whisper by Maia's ear. “It is one thing to play at dueling, but ladies of good breeding do not...” He trailed off, unable to countenance completing the thought.

Maia shut his eyes and thought, long and carefully. When he opened his eyes, he turned not to Oredalar, or Csethiro, or even to Captain Orthema, but to the Master of Ceremonies, and raised his brows. The man paled, his ears twisting back, but he caught himself and quickly twitched them back into place. He was old and tradition bound, but he was not an unintelligent man. “Serenity,” he said, slow and careful himself. “Custom does not permit women to duel, but neither does it forbid them. In fact, it is entirely silent on the matter.”

Oredalar snorted, and although he was wise enough not to cross his arms or lean against the wall in the presence of the emperor, Maia had no doubt that he wished to. “It is silent because they do _not_ ,” he said with finality. “It is a ridiculous notion.” And it was most of all his utter lack of concern, his lazy self-assurance that Csethiro was naught but frivolous and “excitable” and not worthy to be dealt with directly, that decided Maia in the end.

He carefully unclenched his fists and said, “Dach'osmer Ceredin has issued a challenge, and as our Master of Ceremonies assures us it was done in accordance with custom and not in contravention to it, we shall allow it to stand.” He did not dare to turn to the others, but felt their shocked silence all the same. He hoped, powerfully and desperately, that he had not just condemned his empress to humiliation or worse. But he recalled a marriage contract signed in barzhadeise hand and a letter declaring _we regret extremely that we cannot challenge her to a duel_ and thought that he had not. And if his betrothed had been willing to defend his honor with her sword, he could hardly demand that she not act similarly to defend her own.

A member of the Guard, Orthema—someone—had handed the Master of Ceremonies a sword, and he crossed the room and made a formal presentation of it to Oredalar. Oredalar stared at it as if the Master of Ceremonies had just handed him a distaff and asked him to spin. He turned back to Maia and for the first time a hint of uncertainty had entered his expression. 

“Serenity,” he began, but had no chance to speak further, for Csethiro had advanced across the room, rapier drawn and held at the ready. Hastily, he drew his own blade. But instead of advancing, he backed away toward the company assembled by the door. “Serenity,” he said again, “You cannot mean to allow this travesty to continue.” 

Oredalar's self-assured expression had given way to one of doubt; it was clear he now thought he had misjudged. Maia doubted he considered Csethiro any more of a threat, but rather that he had not believed Edrehasivar VII prepared to sacrifice his empress's safety or good name to humiliate a blackmailer, and now thought him ready to do both. Maia risked a quick glance at Orthema and the members of the Guard. “Serenity,” whispered Telimezh, “her form is excellent.” 

“And _he_ knows how to hold a sword not at all,” said Beshelar with fierce satisfaction. Maia released a breath he had not realized he had been holding. And then the duel was joined. Csethiro advanced, whip-quick and surefooted. Oredalar stumbled back, blade flung wide in an outstretched hand. 

Csethiro had the initial advantage of surprise, but Oredalar was taller and stronger and perhaps felt he had more to lose. He grabbed a heavy urn from its pedestal and flung it at Csethiro. She ducked but in that moment he closed the distance between them and bore her to the floor. 

To a man, Maia, the Guard, his nohecharei and Pashavar and Berenar rushed forward, but they needn't have bothered. Before they reached her side Csethiro had tangled Oredalar up in the fabric of her train and rolled atop him. Maia was shocked to see she wore not smallclothes, but a sort of linen trousers beneath her heavy skirts. Csethiro rose to one knee, the other braced firmly across Oredalar's chest, and placed the tip of her rapier against his neck.

“Concede,” she said, very firmly.

He twisted ineffectually beneath her. “Concede,” she said again. “Or we will administer the _coup de grace_ in accordance with the formal rules of dueling, although you saw fit to follow them not.” 

Oredalar's gaze darted around the room, but found no help in any of the faces there. “We concede,” he ground out. Csethiro regarded him for a long, silent moment, then stood and executed a sharp duelist's bow. “We are satisfied,” she said, and she sounded very satisfied indeed.

Maia would have said he had never seen anything so heroic as his edocharei's efforts to make him and his betrothed presentable given the state of their attire and the little time remaining before the rites began, had he not just witnessed his betrothed best an armed blackguard in full wedding regalia. He was so confused and frightened and exhilarated by it all that the ceremony passed by in a blur, and he could recall precisely none of it afterward. But he thought that of the duel and his wedding, it was the former that he would rather remember. 

The tales began to spread while the rite was still underway, and changed as such things do—no doubt helped by Csevet, Maia thought—so that by the time he and his empress made their way back to the Alcethmeret, all of Cetho was alive with the story of how a villain had attacked the empress in her chambers on the very day of her wedding and she had held him off, scratching and clawing, until the Untheileneise Guard had arrived to subdue him. Some even said Edrehasivar VII himself had challenged the man to a duel; some said it was merely one of his nohecharei. The event spawned a small fashion for novels, ballads, and other popular entertainments in which the new empress was threatened and this or that member of his Serenity's court came gallantly to her aid. A few of the meaner examples even claimed that the guardsman or nohecheris acted not out of loyalty but because he wished to conceal evidence of his lurid affair with the empress, but these were widely regarded as derivative flights of fancy and not in the least believable.


End file.
